Just For Fun

This week I’ll observe—if not exactly “celebrate”—my 70th birthday. It’s one of those milestones that prompts unappreciated comparisons to certain large extinct reptiles and not-so-smart remarks about being “over the hill.”

So let me tell you a true “over the hill” story.

The distance from Raton, NM, to Trinidad, CO, is 25 miles. Driving those miles on Interstate 25 means climbing the long, steep, curving grade through Raton Pass and descending the even longer, steeper, curving grade to Trinidad. In April of 2002, my husband Wayne and I drove through Raton Pass on our way home from a three-month construction job in Arizona. He was driving a semi. I was driving a one-ton pickup, pulling a 30-foot fifth wheel camper. He had to stop with the truck at the port of entry near Raton, so I went on ahead over the pass.

This trip was only the third time I had towed the camper and the first time I had driven it in mountains. My training for this experience consisted of two pieces of advice. One, slow down with your gears, not your brakes. Two, the lowest gear you need to shift down to when you’re going up a steep grade is the same gear you should use when you go down.

Thus prepared, I drove up and up, shifting down and down until I ran out of gears. I tried to ignore all the other vehicles passing me as I climbed more and more slowly, until I finally topped the pass. Now came the truly terrifying part—going down the other side. I kept reminding myself to slow with my gears. Occasionally I had to remind myself to breathe. But all in all, it wasn’t too bad. I made it safely all the way down, all the way through Trinidad, and out onto the prairie on the other side, feeling greatly relieved and somewhat close to competent.

That feeling lasted until Wayne came up behind me a few miles later, called on the radio, and told me to pull over and stop. Which was when I learned that I had driven through Raton Pass with no brakes on the trailer. He had disconnected them to save the battery when we stopped for the night and forgot to reconnect them.

Had I known I had no trailer brakes on that long steep grade, I would have panicked. Since I didn’t know, I just kept driving innocently along, with no clue that my confidence in my equipment was misplaced. I just kept following the only instructions I had–which, fortunately, turned out to be quite applicable to the situation. I was also lucky. It’s the most vivid demonstration I’ve ever experienced of the saying, “Ignorance is bliss.”

At the time, I was also ignorant of many other things. I didn’t know that, six months later, Wayne would be killed in a plane crash. I didn’t know that I would eventually find another happy relationship that would also end in sorrow. I didn’t know about the family weddings, the births of grandchildren, and all the other joyful and painful life events and changes still to come.

In the years since, traveling all the unexpected curves and steep grades that shape a life, I’ve left behind the luxury of living in ignorant bliss. I now understand that all of us are mostly muddling our way along with insufficient information and incomplete instructions. At times, we’re all driving through difficult terrain with no brakes. Sometimes we know it and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we’re lucky and sometimes we aren’t. Either way, about all we can do is keep on going.

Even when we flinch at milestones that loom up along our roads much faster than we could possibly have expected—like birthdays that make it impossible to pretend we don’t qualify for the senior discount. Birthdays that make clear life is apt to be mostly downhill from here on, and the brakes wore out several hills back. It’s a challenge to accept that knowledge without panicking. It’s another challenge to figure out the “how” of navigating that road.

I’m still working on both. But a few weeks ago, I encountered a bit of wisdom that I intend to rely on as I go forward. I know it’s deep and profound, because I saw it on a bumper sticker.

On one side was an image of a Buddha-like figure sitting serenely in the lotus position. On the other side were six words. At the top: “Do No Harm.” Below that: “Take No Shit.”

That’s it. That’s my new life plan.

First, to “Do no harm.” Because there is already more than enough pain in the world without my adding to it. I never know what hardships and heartaches other people may be facing. I never know when someone else is driving with no brakes. It’s my responsibility to be accepting of and respectful to those around me.

Second, to realize that “Do no harm” is meaningless without its flip side: “Take no shit.” “Do no harm” is not the same as “let people run over you.” Accepting others is not the same as accepting unacceptable behavior from those who are mean or careless. One of the people entitled to be treated with respect is me.

If, at age 70 and beyond, you can’t speak up for yourself, stand up for what matters, and say what you really think—then when are you going to do it? At this point, what is there to lose? Not having a lot to lose is a powerful place to be.

Heading downhill with no brakes? One word for that is “terrifying.” A better one is “unstoppable.”

Nobody moved midnight, really. It’s still where it’s always been, right there in the dark between 11:59 p.m. and 12:01 a.m. Just as noon is where it’s always been, right there in the middle of the day at lunchtime. (Or right after lunchtime, for those of us who wake up ready for breakfast at 5:00 a.m. and are consequently ready for lunch by 11:15. We’re the same people who have to take midnight on faith, because we haven’t seen it in person since New Year’s Eve at the beginning of the current millennium.)

But in recent years, somebody has been messing with 12:00 o’clock. Instead of the clear and simple designations of noon and midnight, I’m noticing more and more references to 12:00 a.m. or 12:00 p.m.

This usage is confusing. Does 12:00 a.m. mean noon and 12:00 p.m. mean midnight? Or is 12:00 a.m. midnight while 12:00 p.m. is noon? Depending on what you see as the starting point for the 12-hour clock, you could make a case for either one.

And in either case, you would be illogical and incorrect. For the same reason the weather app on my phone was illogical and incorrect the other morning when it informed me that the outside temperature was “minus zero” degrees.

No, it wasn’t. Zero is neither plus nor minus. It is the dividing line between plus and minus. Like an impartial referee, it doesn’t get to take sides.

When it comes to clocks, 12:00 is equivalent to zero. Noon and midnight cannot be a.m. or p.m.; they are the dividing lines between a.m. and p.m. The terms are abbreviations for ante meridiem, (before midday) and post meridiem (after midday). Midday—aka noon—cannot be before or after itself.

Who can we blame this misusage on? Computers, of course. Because digital devices, bless their little one-or-zero hearts, get confused by things that are neither one nor the other. They don’t want to have to deal with the neutral second in between a.m. and p.m. or the neutral zero in between minus and plus.

My phone and my computer claim that noon is 12:00 p.m. and midnight is 12:00 a.m. (So, by the way, does the style guide for the United States Printing Office.) My relatively ancient clock radio also believes midnight is 12:00 a.m., a fact of which I was unpleasantly reminded last night when the alarm that I believed I had set for 5:00 a.m. shrilled at midnight.

Both my microwave and my stove avoid the issue altogether. Possibly they assume users will be able to tell the difference between a.m. or p.m. based on whether they’re scrambling eggs, steaming broccoli, or making popcorn.

I don’t know what the clock in my new car thinks. According to the manual, I can set the clock to either a 12-hour or a 24-hour format and also set it to remind me of birthdays and anniversaries. As if I’m going to attempt that; I just barely know which of the numbers on the intimidating dashboard display is the time. Learning how to set the clock can wait until after I’ve managed to figure out how to adjust the heat, defrost the windshield, and unlock the passenger doors.  

Are noon and midnight lost to us forever? Are they, like sundials and clocks with hands and faces, to be inevitably ground to extinction by the relentless jaws of technology? Not necessarily. That same technology, at this point, is probably sophisticated enough to easily be programmed to show 12:00 as midnight and noon rather than a.m. and p.m. Or we could sidestep the whole issue by switching to the much more logical 24-hour clock. (Not a likely solution any time soon, given our country’s persistent resistance to the metric system used by much of the rest of the world.)

For now, we’re stuck between the midnight/noon logic of human beings and the a.m./p.m. logic of computers. When dealing with digital devices, it’s a good idea to mind their p’s and a’s and figure out which applies to the middle of the day and which to the middle of the night. When dealing with human beings, it’s an even better idea—no matter what your digital devices say—to be clear about whether you mean noon or midnight.

If, for example, you schedule a top-secret assignation in an unfrequented corner of the park for 12:00 p.m., you’d better specify that you mean noon, not midnight. Otherwise your clandestine compatriot could be left in the dark for hours, standing behind a tree clutching a fading pink carnation and a copy of War and Peace, waiting in vain for the secret code.

P.S. Remember to “fall back” this weekend, since Daylight Saving Time ends November 1. At 2:00 a.m., to be precise. (Years ago, my father joked to a group of friends that the thing he hated about DST was staying up till 2:00 a.m. to change the clocks. A woman apparently lacking a sense of humor assured him solemnly that it was perfectly okay to just change the clocks before he went to bed.) But whether you adjust your clocks on October 31 at bedtime or on November 1 either  at 2:00 a.m. or after you’ve realized why you’re at church an hour early, don’t worry too much about your digital devices. They can reset themselves.  

It has been pointed out that everything Fred Astaire did on the dance floor, Ginger Rogers did too—backwards and in high heels.

I was reminded of this recently, watching one of my granddaughters not long before her third birthday. In a pretty pink dress, she was riding her little pink princessy scooter. Not in high heels, of course. In bare feet, with nail polish on each rather grubby toe.

Starting in the driveway, she would charge uphill on the sidewalk—more a slight slope than a steep rise, but uphill nevertheless—driving the scooter as hard as one hard-working little foot could make it go. At the end of the street she would turn, perch on the scooter, and hurtle back downhill. Grinning with glee, her hair and skirt flying, she would go faster and faster, then swerve at the last minute and screech to a halt just before she ran into the mailbox. More Evel Knievel, perhaps, than Ginger Rogers.

Being dressed like a little lady only proved to be a problem once. When she crouched low on the scooter on one of her runs, no doubt trying for maximum acceleration, the back of her skirt wound itself up in the back wheel. She couldn’t stand up until she was untangled by the combined efforts of Mom and Dad.

Who didn’t tell her to slow down, to be careful, to not be so wild, or in any other way to “play like a girl.” They merely suggested that, if she wanted to sit down on the scooter, shorts might be more practical than a skirt. As soon as she was extricated, she took off up the hill to make another run—standing up that time.

It is gratifying to see little girls like my granddaughters growing up in a world where being “girly”—enjoying prettiness and dressing up and all the femininity those things imply—is completely compatible with being strong, playing hard, and taking risks. As well as dealing with and learning from the scrapes and bruises that sometimes result.

What Ginger Rogers did in high heels was certainly impressive. Just think what she might have been able to do in bare feet. With or without nail polish.